Plastic bag bans/regulation/charges

Personal mugs and cloth bags are an even better alternative to compostable cups and bags. Every coffee house should strive for educating people to bring in their personal mugs and discount them the cost of the cup. There is still an astonishing amount of waste coming out of coffee shops. The plastic cups for the cool drinks in the summer fill many of the garbage cans and it is really quite embarassing.

Stores that use bags should be stopping the use of them and telling people they need to bring cloth bags for their purchase. Also, some of the check out staff should be educated on asking people if they need a bag and saying no to people who ask for a bag for a one or two item purchase.

Also, some of the check out staff should be educated on asking people if they need a bag and saying no to people who ask for a bag for a one or two item purchase.

The first time I am told by ANY retailer that I can't have a bag for my purchase will be the last time I ever purchase anything from that establishment. In fact, I would very likely ask for my money back on the spot for whatever it was I had intended to buy. I am all for saving the planet, but telling customers they have to carry their one or two item purchase out in their hands is simply bad customer service.As for bringing a bag with me, it is not always that simple. Since I do not own a car, and I rarely plan on doing a big grocery shop at one time, but rather pick up a few items when I am out, it would be very inconvenient to have to carry around a grocery bag (or bags) with me whenever I step outside my door. I find it quite laughable that people who drive big gas-guzzling SUVs and the like consider themselves good planetary citizens because they carry reusable bags with them. Besides I reuse all my plastic grocery bags for disposal of my non-recyclable garbage, so they aren't just tossed. Which acivity is leaving a larger carbon footprint; my reused plastic bags or their monster vehicle?

Besides I reuse all my plastic grocery bags for disposal of my non-recyclable garbage, so they aren't just tossed.

Your incoming groceries occupies the same volume as your outgoing garbage? I am dubious, or you are using *way* too much packaging. I bet you have 200 bags stuffed in your cupboard, increasing at 2 a week, and that you won't toss them until next time you move or the cupboard won't close anymore. Either that or you are dumping your grocery bags 1/3 full, which is wasteful.

Cloth bags are really really easy for planned grocery trips. Plus they hold about twice as much as normal bags, and have much nicer handles, which I find easier to carry.

Your incoming groceries occupies the same volume as your outgoing garbage? I am dubious, or you are using *way* too much packaging. I bet you have 200 bags stuffed in your cupboard, increasing at 2 a week, and that you won't toss them until next time you move or the cupboard won't close anymore. Either that or you are dumping your grocery bags 1/3 full, which is wasteful..

You are wrong. I fill the bags up and never have a large supply on hand. Don't presume to know how I deal with my garbage.

Cloth bags are really really easy for planned grocery trips. Plus they hold about twice as much as normal bags, and have much nicer handles, which I find easier to carry.

There's the key: PLANNED grocery trips. I rarely plan to get groceries, as alluded to above.

Yeah I never seem to have too much of a surplus either - but then I live alone and have simple tastes. And no, I don't buy overly packaged food, when I can I buy bulk, or buy larger quantities and divide it up and freeze. I use plastic bags to store food like cheese in the fridge too. In the end it balances out, if I have a bundle of plastic bags under the sink some seasons, I also have to buy garbage bags once in awhile too. Like NParker I walk rather than drive, so those huge grocery trips are a very rare occasion for me so I don't come home laden with bags in my trunk. One bag at the store will end up carrying my entire outing's haul, from work related stuff all the way through to groceries. But if a grocer were to refuse me a bag I'd have a 45 min walk trying to carry everything. I'd be pretty annoyed.

Did you think that perhaps I reuse the bags for other purposes as well? I can assure you that the bags leave my home as full as they come in and are never discarded unused.Now can we get this back to the topic of coffee???

I'm happy when asked if I need a bag when making purchases of small amounts of items. But refusing you a bag would be ridiculous. I'd be OK paying the price of a bag ie. 1 cent, but I would be unhappy paying a bag tax ie. 15 cents per.

Its not really presumption, just logic: if 50% of the stuff in those bags is food, then you are throwing them out half full.

Of you fill them up with stuff you didn't buy in the bags. Or you are not using the sewage system the way it was meant to be used. Or you are violating the conservation of mass.

If I ever have extra bags, I just take them back to the store and put them in the bag recycling bin. I have no idea if they actually get recycled, but that's where I put them. It's never been a problem.

I get a 3 cent discount at the grocery stores I shop at when I bring my own (cloth or otherwise) bags. If they wanted to charge me 5 cents for one of their plastic bags, I'd have no problem with that, since I too always reuse those bags (as bin liners, for eg. -- I think I've only once ever actually bought bin liners).

The idea of stores refusing to give out or sell plastic bags is repugnant to me. After all, they sell them in the bin liner aisle, so why not sell them for 5 cents individually?

I never had to buy bags from Superstore, since I always brought my own, but now that they don't even sell them anymore, I'm really annoyed. They're still selling boxes and boxes of bin liners, and I don't want their higher quality reusable bags since I already have 4 or 5 of my own. Just sell me a little plastic bag, and not one of those big "I'm so green" bags.

When you buy a game, you buy the rules. Play happens in the space between the rules.

The Canadian Superstore brand of stores used to charge something like 4 or 5 cents per bag, maybe even more.

Walmart Canada today announced that beginning Feb. 9, 2016, it will stop providing free plastic bags to customers in an effort to promote the use of reusable bags and ultimately eliminate plastic film from land-fill.

Customers will be encouraged to use reusable bags, which will be sold at a discounted rate of 25 cents. Walmart will continue to offer plastic bags at a fee of five cents per bag to those customers who request them.